


Lawrence of the Church

by WaltzQueen



Series: Apprenticeship [1]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Ableist Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Genocide, Pre-Canon, Racist Language, WIP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-11-30 22:10:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11472684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaltzQueen/pseuds/WaltzQueen
Summary: Lawrence's Beforea WIP about lawrence the first vicar.might be folded into Apprentice.





	Lawrence of the Church

The initial split from master Willelm and his colleges at the College was a difficult choice that was made after meany sleepless nights. Lawrence had been studying the effects of the blood found in the great tombs for many years. He had worked with his colleagues to transform Rom,a simple village girl, into something greater than herself.To leave those with whom he had closely worked, the few like minded souls in the land was a heavy choice. The gravitas with which it happened was deserved. However those that had followed him out spent far less nights thinking and considering than he had when they finally make their choice to part from him. Micolash and those calling themselves Mensis scholars part ways within the year of their initial schism from the college. Lawrence watches them go bitterly and wonders if Master Willem felt that way. When he goes to talk to him Lawrence finds him already gone and freshly entombed.  
  
His hands fist around the ghost of a lost opportunity.  
  
Ebrietas' discovery is an unprecedented windfall and is more likely to have not been by any luck or work of their own but more that she chose to reveal herself and for whatever reason wanted to be found. They wonder at that with all the hubris of a mouse looking down on ants and thinking itself mighty. Later Lawrence does his best to not think on it and what it might mean for them. He does his best to not acknowledge the dreadful thought that, as they studied, something might be studying them in return.  
  
Still, they make progress. Ebrietas tells of her failure to join her brothers and sisters in the cosmos, of her despair at being left behind. other Great Ones, of beings with strange and powerful forms. She says Kos and Oedon and Amygdala. Ebrietas' secretions glow and provide strange abilities to objects imbued with them. The Daughter of the Cosmos displays her abilities to summon stars and meteorites and they lap up the knowledge. Most importantly they learn about her blood and its incredible properties. The blood from the tombs, already capable of deterring illness and bringing forth life by itself becomes more marvelous with her additions. It heals larger ailments more quickly. Gehrman all but sever a man's leg, yet with a single application of mixed blood his screams silence instantly as the flesh heals as though there had never been a wound. Maria is a little dissapointed that the same thing does not happen when they sever the man's head. Live and learn, Lawrence supposes, throwing his surgical gloves haphazardly onto the detached head of their latest failure with disappointment. Live and learn.  
  
One day Ebrietas interrupts the routine of their day and screams into the heads of everyone around her. "Mother-friend-sister-daughter," she cries grabbing the human nearest to her, Lawrence's friend, Gehrman, and brings him to the eye in the middle of her head. Everyone watches in awe and terror as she closes it over him like a great mouth, leaving only one protruding arm exposed. She spits him out momentarily and stills. Gehrman attempts to return tho his feet only to stumble and fall. Maria rushes forwards and drags him away in fright and bolts out of the room with Gerhman in tow. The rest of them follow quickly behind. Lawrence glances at Ebrietas as he bars the door.  
  
Though inscrutable, the Gods are Great and Good. Though horrific, the experience of being swallowed up by the cosmos gifted Gehrman with knowledge of a place; a fishing hamlet right off of the northern coast of Iceland. With knowledge of the location and Ebrietas' increasing agitation as time goes by, they have no reason to not go right away.  
  
The hamlet is unlike anything they have ever seen. The residents are deformed and monstrous. Scaled and clammy flesh cover their misshapen forms as they draw phantasms from the mud and pull masses of fish out of the teeming waters. The proximity to the Great One must have altered them into something like Rom. Lawrence thinks over how many beings were in this Hamlet, how many resources they could get from this. How many _eyes_.  
  
The Choir returns in the night, torches ablaze and weapons sharpened into deadly gleams as they tore open the town. The first kin did not run from them in fear as they approached, only vocalized in a curious manner that quickly turned into a bellow of alarm. Lawrence and his fellows ran through the palemoon night, setting fire to everything that would catch a spark. Confused and scared, the citizens of the fishing hamlet run from their homes and into the blades of the hunting humans. Some are quick and merciful, like maria who beheads as quickly as possible. Some are cruel, like Yuria who scores and severs limbs and leaves them to bleed. One by one they fall into blood drenched mud and let out wails as their heads are cracked open like ripe melons and harvested for eyes.  
  
Some of the kin attempt to fight back, but they were not made for fighting, not like Gehrman. They, too, fall under the unyielding bite of metal and fire. When they reach the shore line they find the Great One dead upon the ground. They can smell the rot from the top of the cliff overhanging the beach. Maria retches and can go no further, choosing instead the go back to the village and assist in harvesting eyes. Gehrman and Lawrence walk onwards without her.  
  
The Great One is many times the size of a human, though not as large as Ebrietas. She called it sister. She called it daughter-mother-frend. Lawrence calls it dead. It could have told them so many things. All that knowledge, all that power was gone now. With a great frustration Lawrence rears back his leg and kicks it. He strikes it twice and finishes off with a great stomp directly in the middle of it. Gehrman and Lawrence snap their heads downwards as something inside the great one gives off a sharp squeal.  
  
 Eventually he learns to live with it and they continue on. Beasts start happening at this point (from the curse of the hamlet upon their blood) and Gerhman starts hunting. After the fishing hamlet, Maris throws away her Rakuyo. Maria locks herself away in the tower, tending to the patients or communing with Ebrietas. It is only when beasts begin to grow in numbers that she picks involves herself in hunting again, even if only marginally.

  
  
Lawrence is having an audience with Ebrietas,rarely enlightening and seldom dangerous but always strange,when she lifts her head and points them all to a train station. She is glad to see her friend-sister-mother-daughter and asks them to greet her. While Ebriatis' first summons had been to the body of a great one washed up on the shore, her second and latest had directed them only to a bloated corpse off the south end of India, a trip that had drained a lot of resources. The corpse had been brought back fo study and was interesting enough, but not the breakthrough the last one had been. Still, the Great Ones could see far more of the world than them and  to not heed her wisdom would surely be the utmost folly. Besides it is not as though it was halfway around the world again, it is simply a trip to the edge of the city.  
  
Lawrence sees a man, young and sticking out like a sore thumb, and approaches with the intent of harassing him into compliance, as he is the most powerful man in all of Yharnham and everyone else will just have to look the other way. They do, indeed, look the other way as he strolls into the station. People turn to face dark corners and shadowed doorways as he passes. Some look intently with adoration, but they are of no harm.  He brushes off the effusive reverence and praise as he steps down the stairs to the platform of the trains station. When he gets close he sees Priyahnka and Lawrence recognizes something distant but otherworldly in that deep animal part of himself that fears the night and all the things that might be lurking in it. It feels like opening his eyes for the first time and seeing the sunlight. He hears echoes of memory, a Great One giving off squeals of pain as it died. "Friend-mother-sister-daughter."    
  
Lawrene doesn't engage in conversation quite yet. He keeps his distance, watching from afar as the Old One and her servant go down the city streets.  He sets the harrowed hunters to keep a watch on them as he goes back to Ebrietas. She pulls him towards her when he steps foot into the Altar of Ebrietas and projects wave after wave of pounding, pulverizing joy into his mind. She presses him close to the giant eye that reflects the cosmos in her head and briefly closes her eye lid over him, sealing him inside the cosmos for a brief and horrific moment. She lets him out and floods him and all nearby Choir members with hope.  
  
Alright. So he found the right girl.  
  
Now to experiment.  
  
After a night of recovery, during which he discovers a badger stripe of white in his red hair, Lawrence finds the Great One and the man she is with in an inn. He makes makes small talk outside of the building while she sleeps. He considers slipping inside and simply snatching her up. It would be easier to experiment if they could keep her in the church or in the clock tower. He doesn't get far, as sheer proximity begins to give him frenzy. He hands the man a bag of money and directs him to a house relatively close to the cathedral ward, nothing conspicuous but close enough to keep an eye on Her.  
  
She has a name, Priyahnka. It sounds like a heathen name and Lawrence despairs that she chose to manifest in such a place. Surely being amongst inferiors had caused her growth to stunt.He wonders if he should provide her with a proper name, a better classification but it falls by the wayside as the days move on. She behaves as a human, small and fragile. She obeys the laws and has petty arguments over inconsequential things. Harrowed hunters report in to Lawrence with increasing confusion. For all intents and purposes she appears to be a normal human despite Ebriatis' vivacious confirmations to the contrary. Gehrman posits that she might be retarded by the Indians. Lawrence supposes it makes as much sense as anything else.He doesn't mention the dark circles that nightmares have etched into the skin of his eyes. How can he, when he has them, too?  
  
Ebrietas insists on being closer to Her and bringing her into the fold, but she isn't a scientist and kidnapping would probably only enrage her. Not to mention probably kill Lawrence via frenzy. Lawrence makes arrangements to have Gerhman bring her into his fold. They poison the blood of a man, (and the choir members are having a world of fun figuring out what makes the blood corrupt and then making it do that, but faster) and have Gerhman kill him, saving Priyahnka in the night. After that it's all a matter of incentive.  
  
They provide her with a job and then a cover-job to explain away the money. They quietly watch her and the way she moves. They watch her lean into the warmth of a fire with no fear and shrug off the most powerful of shocks that has even Ebrietas reeling and they Learn. Lawrence stops by personally to talk with Gehrman and judge the results of their subtle tests on her every month. Maria disappears one day after an argument with Gehrman and these visits also become solace for Gehrman in addition to business meetings.  
  
When the beasts are too many and they cannot tread a step without walking on one they send Priyahnka out into the night and very nearly dies. Having faced a valuable asset nearly vanish in the space of a single night they make the choice to get more hunters, so that she is never in true danger like that again. To make it happen they make the choice to make the scourge a public thing.  
  
Gehrman and Lawrence conspire to summon another Great One. Two subjects was always better than one. Lawrence puts Ludwig in charge of the hunting as a back up in case something happens to Gehrman. Then Gehrman disappears into the dream and Lawrence loses his best friend. Having moved into a more defensive state of mind, Lawrence instructs  Ludwig to keep Priyahnka isn't the least dangerous parts of the city for the foreseeable future.  
  
Then Priyahnka dies.  
  
  
Lawrence gets word that Priyahnka, who is the only Great One they have access to has died. The world begins to spin around him becoming blurry and sharper at the same time. He can't breathe he gasps as he clutches his throat. Worried Choir members, rush to his side and then scramble away as he splits open like the cracked heads of the fishing hamlet kin. Blood soaks the floor of the tower room as his body rearranges itself into a monster the size of a house. That which once was Lawrence, master of the choir and the Healing Church, bounds away into the night, screaming and roaring.  
  
Ludwig goes down on the same night and the Church is scrambling for a foothold on how to get their shit together again for a while. The man that She lived with joins the hunters soon after Priyahnka's death. Hunters of hunters, the crows that weed out the weak willed and malicious are employed soon after. With no one left who recognizes the importance of keeping that man safe, they allow Gascoigne to leave the healing church.  
  
Then one day Priyahnka Kapoor is born. And everything goes to Hell.


End file.
